iPhone Week 3...

Ok so it's now my third week with the iPhone and I figured it would be worthwhile posting a quick follow up to mention what I feel about the device now that the excitement of owning one of these things is gone.

At this point I would honestly say I have mixed feelings about the device. As a phone is above average. As a PDA, once you get the email configured (no fault of the phones), its pretty schmexy, I love not lugging around 15 pounds of laptop. I still hate iTunes and the Apple Store is so woefully inadaquate for selling software that it makes my brain hurt at how a company the general masses think is so "brilliant" can be so stupid at how it sells software (but oh that's right, Apple doesn't really know how to sell software without slagging its competition with TV ads that are outright lies).

The biggest disappointment I have had thus far is the fact that the iPhone SDK requires a Mac. When I got my phone I took a look at the app store and saw pretty much 95% crap/overpriced items on there, but it did inspire me to want to maybe write a few small apps of my own. Sadly this dream is done for until Apple gets off its collective ass and smells the coffee by releasing the SDK for Windows and Linux. I honestly do not know what they were thinking but 95% of the computer work does not use a Mac, so why they chose to cut this massive market segment out from developing for the phone IMHO shows that they are either ignorant and inept or theyre being anti-competative and are trying to force people to buy Macs to really extend the iPhone capabilities and make it great.

A minor disappointment is that for some reason, if I change the ports on my email, it somehow fucks up the phone and prevents it from connecting to the 3G network of my carrier... WTF. So each time this happens (luckily I am done configuring the email) I have to reset the phone's settings. GAH! I had to learn this the hard way by waiting on hold to my carrier for them to give me that 2 minute solution :(

A minor annoyance is the fact that for some reason now, my keypad on the iPhone is horribly laggy. Maybe I am trying to type too fast but I can end up whole sentences ahead of what the phone is displaying on the screen and then I can watch it play cathup. I am not sure what is going on here but it seems like a major flaw to me which makes using the phone for anything more than a quick email response kinda useless. If anyone has any suggestions on fixing this please let me know.

Another minor annoyance is using the web browser and posting in a forum. For some rediculous reason, each type you type a letter in a forum post, the retarded Safari browser decides to scroll the screen suddenly up to the top of the screen and then back down to the forum post. I have found if I zoom out of the forum post (which is a bit tricky because the keyboard for the iPhone takes up so much screen) I can get around this issue... but reading what I have typed becomes a bit tricky :(

As for any new positive things to say about the phone, I haven't really experianced any since my initial post, but if I do I will be sure to mention it.

iDs Rage Requires BluRay For Best Graphics? WTF?

While on the road to my grandfathers 95th birthday I read an article on my iPhone from Gamastura entitled "QuakeCon: Carmack Talks Blu-ray Advantage Over Xbox". The jist of the article as I understand it is that apparently iD's new game "Rage" won't be as good on the PC and 360 because of texture and audio compression.

Now to some people they might be turn this into a PS3 vs 360/PC debate, myself however I have to wonder what the fucking hell anyone should give a shit about whether the data is compressed or uncompressed. Why? Well great games are those that are fun to play. Compressed or uncompressed data has nothing to do with gameplay.

I will tell you what isn't fun though... load times for games, and I can fucking guarentee you that if iD thinks that Rage will be a bundle of joy because of a lack of data compression, what won't be fun is the end user waiting minutes on end for the dammed game to page from the optical disc to their machine, and then their machine trying to figure out WTF to do with all this data. I already hate the amount I have to wait right now for my console games to load, nevermind when I have to page down gigs and gigs of data for a mission environment. I can just see it now, players impatiently waiting as they watch their screen say "Game Loading... estimated time for completion, 30 minutes".

But maybe iD will suprise us and in between load times we can play one of their older Quake or Doom games and completely forget about the fact that this wonderfun technological triumph that is Rage is loading in the background. Then while you are in the middle of a rocket jump, your screen will flash over and say "Rage is now loaded" and the player will respond with "Rage... what the hell is Rage, I was playing Quake! Get me back to my game before that newb guns me down!"

So now Rage loads up and we go and play, shoot shoot, drive your vehicle... let the system page the data as we travel in a fast moving vehicle, surely we won't mind a second or two of lag for the opportunity to see a spec of dirt in such fine HD glory will we? I don't know about you, but I hated Oblivion on the 360 because of this, so I am just dreading the fact that I will be trying to play an action game with any sort of paging going on.

Maybe I could be wrong. But I have a sneaking suspicion I will be right and in the end if iD does go down this route we as the consumer will suffer from broken promises and another boring tech demo of engine technology.